THE TIME TUNNEL-The Kidnappers

This episode has no opening narration. In fact, it opens with the Tic Toc tunnel set in the complex as Ann, Ray, and Kirk watch a lot of static on the screen. They are getting interference but from channels they never use--one hundred to infinity. Another tech is sitting at the console to Ann's left. We also see another female technician working in the background. As Ray wants a check run, calling for it, a blast of light and smoke occurs, after which a silver suited man with a glass dome over his head appears! He points to Ann, "I have come for you."Music used during this sequence is chock full of the great JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH music by Bernard Herrman. The being moves at Ann; Kirk touches him and falls from an electric shock field and the beingthen shoots some type of laser from his medallion which is worn around his neck and makes a guard who attacked him fall (dead?). Later, Kirk asks the other guards to take him to the infirmary (Ann later tells Tony and Doug that the being, OTT, did indeed kill the guard but she couldn't have known if the man recovered or not) just after the being vanishes with Ann in his arms---after touching her and electrifying her also after tossing Ray aside--who was trying to protect Ann. Kirk recovers and Ray tells him Ann is gone, calling him General as he usually does. Ray also makes himself useful by finding a metal object OTT dropped when Ann grabbed at him to try to free herself. They looks it over, thinking it reminds them of their computer data processing cards (and for 1968 this is correct---computers were all on cards with punch holes in them and tied together with rubber bands and run through computers separately!) only this one is alien as it is metal. Kirk figures if they put it into their computer it might give them the coordinates to where the creature took Ann---and Kirk figures they can send Tony and Doug there to help get her back! As Ray puts it into the machine he says, "I hope this doesn't jam the machine."This is where the least exciting cliffhanger ends (attached to the episode MERLIN THE MAGICIAN). The teaser continues on from there as they do indeed, get the coordinates. Ray notices something odd about them but Kirk doesn't care. As they program the tunnel instruments, Ray says to the General, "If we do this, you realize we may never regain contact with any of them again."Kirk doesn't answer him but orders, "Switch them,"in a gutsy move. Ray does and the tunnel hums and sparks as it usually does when switching something--mostly for dramatic effect but nice all the same. A good beginning. OTT's appearance and vanishing was accompanied by JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH music as well as music that might sound like that of the future LAND OF THE GIANTS, especially as Kirk is shot down and just before Ann is grabbed.

We do not see the titles right away. Instead, we see Tony and Doug flying through the crystal like vortex, landing on a hard floor. Doug thinks it is the distant future. As the boys survey their surroundings we can notice many LOST IN SPACE set pieces--the scope from the GIRL FROM THE GREEN DIMENSION and the archway from Sesmar's lab in THE DREAM MONSTER among these. A man comes to them, his walk and blank stare indicating his mind is gone, something Tony and Doug call a vegetable. The man is an Ancient Roman, which confuses the boys. Just before the pair find out about this man, trying to question him, the titles appear in a freeze frame and we hear a great deal of music from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL here, before this scene, and throughout this episode. Doug tells Tony this place has an unreal feel to it. A voice explains that this is Cicero. In 43 BC Marcus Julius Cicero is taken an instant before his death by THE KIDNAPPERS. He was killed when Octavian wanted revenge for Caesar's death and with Mark Antony and Lepidus led an army to attack Rome, the troops killing thousands, among them Cicero who had made speeches against Mark Antony. Erasmus, a Medieval scholar who went to the university of Paris and was a friend of Sir Thomas Moore walks from out of the darkness after the Roman Cicero shuffles off. Erasmus was a humanist and theologian who died in 1536. Feeling his pulse, Doug says, "He's dead and yet he's not dead,"in one of the many stupid things he says in this episode.

Complex: Kirk walks back into the tunnel area and he and Ray view Tony and Doug walking through the futuristic set (more left overs from VOYAGE and LOST) on the tunnel image screen. When Kirk wonders, "Where on Earth are they?"Ray answers, "They're not on Earth at all."Both see that the fix is fairly good. Kirk doubts himself now, asking Ray if he made a blunder sending Tony and Doug to the coordinates blindly. Ray isn't sure but tries to calm him since they now have a very stable fix.

A voice calls to Tony and Doug, the same voice that calmly explained who the two past men were. It tells them to follow the light, calling them by name. Doug and Tony walk past computer hallways from LOST IN SPACE's THE TIME MERCHANT episode and enter a room that seems to have the arch to the toy machine from THE TOYMAKER on LOST IN SPACE. They see a silver man, face, suit, skin, etc, all silver. They look up and see the sky. The alien leader, the Curator (although it is pretty difficult to tell he is a curator from watching the episode) says one of many very silly lines: "We need no roofs here."Uh-ho, watch out bad dialogue police, there's more to follow. "We have perfected climate control."He tells them it is the year 1910 and Tony find that difficult to believe. He tells them what year it is in Earth terms, waving his hand over the table-desk. We hear familiar sound effects from FANTASTIC VOYAGE and he tells them the year is 8433 Ano Domini.

Kirk gets the computer to translate the coordinates: Doug and Tony are 98 million light years away on a planet circling the star Canopis, 6 thousands years from now ("now" being 1968).

The voice from the machinery tells a great deal about Tony (which conflicts with the past history of the character--from the pilot RENDEZVOUS WITH YESTERDAY and THE DAY THE SKY FELL IN). In the first, he claims he was born in 1938 and in the second he was about 7 in 1941 at Pearl Harbor's bombing. It is possible for THE KIDNAPPERS to be at ease with the pilot. It would him at about 16 if we follow the pilot. THE KIDNAPPERS here says Tony graduated high school in 1954, he left Philadelphia (where according to Tony in PIRATES OF DEADMAN'S ISLAND he has relatives living but in 1805 they weren't born yet) and attended Boston to matriculate to Massachusetts Institute of Technology on scholarship, while at this institution he...) sorry, gang, that's all we get to find out.As for THE DAY THE SKY FELL IN, sorry, but Tony, if he were seven in 1941, would have been about 19 or 20 in 1954 and graduating high school! I guess he could have been left back. I prefer to think he was skipped and at the age of 16 graduated high school. How then do I explain THE DAY THE SKY FELL IN?

Back to THE KIDNAPPERS. The alien leader is called to the dispatching chamber. Tony tells Doug they know everything...the aliens, not he and Doug. Tony finds a way to open the sliding doors and then all hell breaks loose: we hear an alarm, the sound of the Jupiter II which is really the sound effects from FANTASTIC VOYAGE, music from the TIME TUNNEL pilot by John Williams, and someone shouting (I think it is Doug). As this ludicrous scene continues, Doug and Tony bump headlong into two aliens, knocking them flat and out in the best THREE STOOGES fashion, and getting their guns. As two more guards take aim, Tony and Doug get out of the way and the two guards shoot each other in the best ABBOTT AND COSTELLO fashion! They run to the darker room filled with gadgets from VOYAGE and LOST and shoot more guards. When Tony tells Doug the aliens won't give up and asks which way they should go to hide---Doug says another inane thing, "What difference does it make?"We also hear the familiar time tunnel popping sound music behind the boys talking---this three ring circus slows down a bit and starts to make a bit more sense but whoa...that action sequence is one of the worst in the entire series...but TOWN OF TERROR and RAIDERS FROM OUTER SPACE are yet to follow.

Tony and Doug hide and shoot two more guards. The alien voice of the Curator calls, "Surrender."Two aliens bring Ann and we hear some creepy and appropriate LOST IN SPACE music. Tony and Doug drop the ray guns right away. Doug says, "It really is you."How does he know it is not some alien trick? The aliens are wearing LOST IN SPACE Robinson space suits and their faces are covered with bubble like dome masks with large back fins or antennas on the back of the head. They are faceless. Ann tells them she was drugged and doesn't know how long she's been here but it is something like hours or days. Doug tells them to let her go and Ann repeats this twice while we hear some first season VOYAGE music.

More hysterics from Ann in Act Two begin but the alien leader voice orders the guards to release her. Ann hugs Doug. Lee Meriweather does a wonderful job in this episode, the only poor spot by her is when she is faking she is taking the cube drug later in the episode...but overall you can really believe that Ann is really in this situation...and that is no easy feat considering the silliness of the direction. Lee does fine in this one and it almost makes one which she had just sent the Space Time Converter back to the year 1968 alone and had continued on with Tony and Doug. She was much more human than both of them and a woman's perspective would have been a boost to the series...and I'd have liked for her to lose that white lab coat! Even kidnapped she wore it for the whole hour! In any event, this is Meriweather's episode as she is given the best lines and she makes the most of it, Doug is given the worst and his delivery in this episode is not up to his usual fine acting.

As Kirk and Ray watch all of this, Kirk asks Ray if he can bring them back now and Ray answers that he can bring them all back. Kirk tells Ray, "Just hold your fix."

Ray answers, "We've got them this time, general."

So what does Kirk do? He picks up the microphone and tells the trio to maintain their position, alerting the alien guards, who then run to the three and grab them, moving them away from the area. Why did Gen. Kirk do that? He usually makes good decisions. Oh well, if Doug is acting off in this episode, so is Kirk. Would you believe later he is actually sitting on one of the main time tunnel consoles? Well, the power was all off. OTT reappears, guards shoot him to no effect. He shoots one of them down (and the guard appears to be moving--alive?). There is more JOURNEY music and OTT opens a computer, taking the Time Space converter unit, vanishing again in a puff of black and white smoke and lightning like effects.

Tony and Doug have been separated from Ann again. She is on a table. At their concern (mostly Doug's) the Curator tells them she is not in suspension like Erasmus and Ciscero, she was merely recovering from a preliminary interrogation. This sequence reminds me of one that would appear later in a 1975 episode of SPACE: 1999-THE MISSION OF THE DARIANS. Ann awakens and hugs Doug, "Where are we?"Ann then sees Tony and holds his hand, smiling at him. Again, Meriweather is terrific and very human and warm in this scene, making this episode better than it has any right to be. The alien takes them to a teleport chamber (the room of which has many hanging pictures of stars, galaxies, and planets--one of many rooms that do) and tells them it is his own time machine and its control is classified. A puff of smoke and OTT (the OTT explained by the Curator as Official Time Traveler) appears. The alien leader, the Curator, says some silly things...information we could care about if it were delivered at the right time and in the right way. Examples include: "We no longer use surnames of course,"and "We call him OTT."He orders the alien guards to take the three to their quarters...all three are in the same room and it does not appear to have a door. The music here and in other parts of this episode sound unlike anything used in Irwin Allen's shows except for maybe one or two alien invasion stories on VOYAGE and also seem to sound a bit like the movie CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS soundtrack. Very alien sounding and very good.

Ray is on the phone and informs Kirk of bad news: the replacements are in stock but with the testing, tuning, and adjusting it could take ten days before they can get it operational. Kirk is upset but this is the single most important component to the tunnel. Kirk frustrates, "Ten days, they'll be beyond reach..we'll never recover them then, never!"

A guard brings cubes on a tray and puts them on a table in the room Ann, Tony, and Doug are in and leaves. The Curator tells them it is their dinner and he hopes they enjoy it. Tony rolls his eyes, "He talks through walls."When the Curator asks if he finds it convenient, Tony answers, "Very."He can hear them wherever they are in the alien complex. The aliens do not have a need for organic food...Tony figures some biological adaptation like sunlight gives plants; however the alien has to give a lesson to the viewers by pointing out it is not sunlight, not the light of Sol, the Earth's sun but the light of Canopus...Canopian light. The cubes are for their guests. Tony tells the other two that they should eat the cubes; Doug agrees but Ann puts up a protest, "Are you two..?"Tony is only faking it and puts a stop to her protest. He motions for her to give him a pad without talking...which she almost does out of reflex. He writes to them that they should try to make for the teleport chamber. How come the aliens can hear through walls but can't set up a decent camera system to spy on their guests...and why bother to spy on them anyway...why not just force them down as they do later to Tony and Doug...or manage just to do to Tony?

When they leave the room, the best part of the episode occurs. The few minutes of walking through the hallways, avoiding the guards, more so with OTT, are quite creepy, surreal, and tense as they move about the excellent sets. We also see more pieces of equipment--the Wheel of Life from LOST IN SPACE-THE DEADLY GAMES OF GAMMA 6 and hear more CREATION OF THE HUMANOIDS music. It all sets up a nice atmosphere. Tony and Doug get ready to take two guards on, who are on either side of the hall when a door opens and OTT walks down a hallway at them. They hide and he goes through another door. Tony tosses something (the cube he hid in his pocket I think) on the floor to distract the guard at the teleport chamber whom he chose to fight. For some strange reason, the guard is just standing along the wall divider with only his feet showing from Tony's vantage point. Why? The guard cannot see anything from this spot and is so close to the wall that he cannot possibly be guarding anything. As Doug walks right into another guard and he and Tony knock him out, OTT sneaks up behind Ann, non-chalantly and unassuming, "Drop them. Move."He makes the boys drop their guns, using his medallion on Ann if they won't obey. He takes them to the leader who comes out to greet them. He wants them to submit to his will. They are collecting full data on all of Earth history. The subject he is about to show them has had the sum total of his personality extracted and this is helping in a study on the psychology of tyrants. The alien pulls the covers off the body. Ann, Doug, and Tony react but we never see the body and the trio in the same scene, only a table with a strange cover at the top...the body is that of Adolph Hitler (played with restraint by Bob May).

Act Three opens and we do not see May with any of the three regulars or the guest star Mike Ansara, who usually very good, is very bad in this role. May has no speaking parts which is just as well for us. Hitler was retrieved from a bunker in Berlin an instant before his attempted suicide. When the plan to turn them into zombies is called a way of immortality, Doug calls the alien mad and the madman says, "There is a thin hairline between madness and genius."Doug wonders why he and Tony, "We're not geniuses."The leader tells them they underestimate themselves--the first men to travel in time. Ann was just bait to get them here. Since Doug and Tony tell him Ann is useless to him (and apparently to them too--no just kidding--it's late again) he should let her go home. He won't do it...she could prove an interesting subject as well. Curator gets drowsy but tells them they should also be getting tired..the cubes were drugs. After they wake up from a sleep...they will be immortalized. When it gets dark, the alien go dormant. Doug triumphantly puts the cubes on the alien's desk. He tells them they were not honest with him and Doug tells him he wasn't with them. Well, there, fine, tit for tat and all that. The leader runs to sound the alarm from his desk; Tony is stopped by the electric forceshield that surrounds his body but as he hits a control on his desk, the alien seems to freeze and bow his head in his seat. Three guards come in and this short sequence is a bit creepy also as they emerge from out of the darkness. The sky goes dark and they also become still in another dark and creepy sequence. The three search the Curator's desk, figuring it controls everything and maybe the Space Time Converter is there. Ann is afraid of the Curator but he cannot move. She tells Tony not to hit any buttons--they don't know what they control. She finds a heat sensor cell and puts her hand over it. They wonder how much time they have to find the converter: it matters on the rotating speed of the planet. They looks up and see the stars. OTT walks in circles around the well designed sets (although we see all of them too much). He seems to be wearing the arms of Verda's costume from LOST IN SPACE-THE ANDROID MACHINE and REVOLT OF THE ANDROIDS. As Doug unbuttons his jacket Tony also figures that the area they are in could be close to one of the poles of the planet---it may stay dark for only a few minutes more. Ann opens the door to the room by using her hand to break a beam, similar to how Tony did earlier (why he didn't realize this now is beyond me but in the script the earlier scene did not happen that way and Tony wouldn't have known but now he should have in the aired version). The boys send Ann of on her own so she can figure out the teleport chamber device while they search for the converter. We also see the forcefield device from the Robinson camp from LOST IN SPACE. Ann fools with the teleport device and we hear some very effective music. Doug searches the room they were held in, you know, the one with no door (an effective prison, eh?). Why he would think they'd hide the converter in there is also beyond me...or anyone else. Tony looks in the alien leader's room, checking several wall units.

Ray is testing the new converter down to seconds, milli-seconds, micro seconds, and nano seconds but it continues to be off by a millionth or billionth--these scenes do not appear in the script.Kirk feels helpless as the tuning continues. Since the power is off Kirk is sitting on one of the main consoles. Ray calls the towers for a time scale (what's that?) and in the background we see the main entrance doorway to the complex (unlike in IDOL OF DEATH where Castellano just walks in from an open side wall--?).

Doug creeps up on Ann, not wanting to spoil her concentration and it scares her. When she tells him, he laughs at her. Nice guy. They realize they haven't seen any labels or written words or signs at all which would designate controls for power levels. They find the metal punch cards which remind Doug of their own computer punch cards. Ann found it magnetically stuck to the time podium stand. Doug thinks the aliens don't use writing any more--gee, how'd he know if they ever did? Joining up again with Tony, they put one of the cards in the leader's desk device slot and it tells them only one person can be sent at a time but any number can return. They start to move out but Ann stops them. Through the open door she sees someone shuffling out of the darkness of the hallway...it is OTT and he is walking right toward their room, his hand on the medallion weapon around his neck.

Act Four opens with the threesome remaining very still...and I've always wondered how on Irwin's shows the actors and actresses have remained this still...they almost always do. Is it some special effect somehow? Anyhow, it is very good almost always on each series and is used on all four main Allen shows. Why OTT doesn't suspect something anyway is beyond me. He knows they are from Earth and don't need the sunlight (oh, excuse me, Mr. Curator Canopis light--the principal is the same). They should be lying on the floor, passed out from the cube drugs, not standing still like they are. He leaves for instructions in the teleport chamber. The three figure OTT has a power source attached to his hip which keeps him moving, no human (but these are aliens not humans as far as the three and we, the viewers know--see script notes below) organism can stay active all the time...his power source must be stored up energy. If the play the instructions on how to work the time device, OTT will hear it but they already did this once! Perhaps that is what drove him back to the room in the first place. They use the card to set the time and place: Sol star, planet Earth, North American continent, time tunnel complex. They must stand on dias and depress the red transmitter button. They take the leader's medallion...as he sleeps his forcefield is off. Ann tells them it is a weapon....OTT killed one of their guards when he appeared she says (but did he? The guard looked wounded and Kirk ordered him to the infirmary).

Ann insists they find the space time convertor before they leave...she won't have Tony and Doug stranded here if they can't get back using the alien time machine (how insightful and psychic of her). As they are about to search some more, OTT comes in and opens a sliding cabinet in the shape of an octagon which is on the wall--some kind of art wall design with a hidden alcove. He fires a beam at them to ward them off and warns them not to approach him. He could have killed them and prefers to but the Curator needs them unharmed. Tony asks if it is getting light and OTT looks up at the sky. This gives Tony enough time to turn the medallion weapon, which he had hidden in his hand, on the creature OTT, dropping him down. The boys give Ann the convertor and bid her to leave now. She kisses Doug (on the mouth) goodbye and then kisses Tony on the cheek or lightly on the mouth and leaves. She goes to the teleport dias in the teleport chamber and begins to try to leave. The other aliens wake up as the sunlight comes back. Doug covers the aliens with the medallion. He and Tony run to Ann as a guard shoots a gun at her, misses, and is shot by Tony. Another guard shoots at Ann and there is a huge blast. After it, Ann is gone and Tony, Doug, and the guard all fall from the close proximity of the blast!

The machine is destroyed, in pieces all over the floor. Guards get Tony and Doug on their feet again and are ordered to take them for suspension. They shuffle them off to another room. Ann suddenly appears in a burst of flame and dark smoke, seemingly dazed and winded but all right. Lee Meriweather does another excellent job here as Ann truly seems to have suffered from the shot of the guard and the shock of the time travel...perhaps the shot did do something but she survived. She begins giving orders to save Tony and Doug. Kirk helps by ordering the tests stopped, wires removed, and for them to cut all power units before doing so. Then as it is installed again, he orders them to activate all units and computers. Tony is put on a table and the ray machine pointed at him. Doug gets or has another medallion (perhaps he grabbed the one Tony had when Tony fell and dropped it or grabbed it from one of the guards or something?). He shoots the leader and his guard custodian. Tony vanishes right off the table as the two custodians try to force him to stay down on it. Doug shoots one more guard and vanishes also. A word or two about Del Monroe: he plays it completely straight--perhaps a lesson he learned on VOYAGE and he makes OTT terribly scary. Del, together with Lee, make this episode more than it was and for that both should be commended. Just the opposite is true of Michael Ansara. Usually he is very good and also plays characters straight. Like TIMELOCK's main villain, this one seems to have originally been a mix of the feminine and masculine but that is thrown to the censors. Ansara isn't terribly over the top; however his lines (and scripted they aren't all that good) are delivered in such a way as to make them even more silly than they are. Ansara's done been better in almost everything else he's been in.

CLIFFHANGER: Tony and Doug fly through time and are watched on the screen by the tunnel staff. The boys land in a desert near some rocks and try to figure out where they are. Doug points for Tony, telling him to look over at men fighting. Arabs and British fight and kill each other by the hundreds it seems. Two horsemen attack them, throwing spears at them, then fighting, getting jumped off horses, then drawing their swords on Tony and Doug. Tony uses the spear he caught to defend himself and almost kills an Arab. Doug jumps onto the one facing him. British soldiers come running from the other side, chased by Arabs on horseback. After a fairly exciting fight, the two run past huge rocks to behind one outcropping. The battle rages on, stock footage to be sure. Doug figures by their uniforms it is either late 19th century or early 20th. Tony wonders also but figures it is desert and they'll need to help themselves to water and weapons. The fight goes on, ignoring them. As they move out to find water and weapons, more Arabs on horseback come chasing British men who are firing pistols back at the Arabs. Doug comments there is too much traffic here so he and Tony run around some more large rocks and almost run into something that is coming out from cover of the rocks itself. A strange being, another behind him. It looks like some kind of fish creature with fins and a large head, leveling a strange ray rifle at the pair, and only answers their questions with, "Who we are isn't important. We are hear to destroy you."

NOTE: Much of the Bernard Herrman music used in THE TIME TUNNEL is on THE MARVELOUS FILM WORLD OF BERNARD HERRMAN vol. 1 including KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES (used in TIME TUNNEL's NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES) and GARDEN OF EVIL (this recently discovered by me to be the stock music source used in many VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEAs and THE TIME TUNNELs). It may have also been used on some of the more offbeat LOST IN SPACE episodes (THE LOST CIVILIZATION, WAR OF THE ROBOTS come to mind). Also on this volume of music is the wonderful BENEATH THE 12 MILE REEF which was the absolute source for the flying belt music and the Penny lost music used in the first season of LOST IN SPACE (the unaired pilot uses almost all of the music, THERE WERE GIANTS IN THE EARTH, INVADERS FROM THE 5TH DIMENSION, THE RAFT). The Penny lost music is also used in VOYAGE's DEADLY INVASION. This Herrman volume is practically an Irwin Allen CD.

THE KIDNAPPERS ORIGINAL SCRIPT-A BETTER VERSION!-THE ORIGINAL TAG for this episode was supposed to have Tony and Doug materialize in a mist shrouded area. As the mists clear, Tony turns to Doug, with mounting excitement which he is fighting to control. Tony has turned to feel the curved sloping wall of the tunnel. They think they are back in the tunnel 1968. They race out of the tunnel only to find their elation short lived: the place is deserted. Tony picks up a mike and calls Central Control. Doug in a phone calls for Sergeant Jiggs. They go out of the doors into a corridor. There are doors unmarked all about. They go to one of the doors and find sunlight. Inside is a full scale American Civil War battle with charging soldiers and bursting shells...all motionless. This was to be the ending of the previous episode MERLIN THE MAGICIAN. The teaser would have gone on from here as they look around the Civil War fake battle scene. Another door leads to the Ancient Roman Colosseum. The citizens are in the stands, on the ground is a dead slave with a bloodthirsty lion over him and more terrified slaves waiting to die. It is three dimensional but nothing moves. The door to this room--an exhibit--closes. A man laughs, seemingly close to them. They wheel around only to see nothing. They stare helplessly as the laugh is repeated. End of teaser. Act One begins with Ann, Ray, and Kirk watching them and finding that they have little fluctuation...a good chance to get them back-a 100 percent chance. The Curator tells them they have very little humor on this planet. Humor is an outgrowth of adversity. Since his society is almost perfect, there is little laughter in it. No adversity, no humor..the price one pays for perfection. This is what he tells them after Tony asked if their roof leaked. It never rains on this planet. The conversation makes more sense in this scripted version. When they ask him about the year he replies it is 6488 double A (bra size?). Double A means, he tells them, the Atomic Age which began in Earth's year of 1945 AD. It is 8433 AD. The Curator tells them they are no longer on Earth. The power build up doesn't allow for Ray and Ann to transfer Tony and Doug yet. Ray feels since they are so far in time and space, the fix is better than a closer time and space coordinate.

Even more interestingly, the Curator shows Doug and Tony what is supposedly Earth...an Arctic like wasteland is where Miami once was. He goes on to tell them that a new Ice Age took over the planet from pole to pole and calls the planet "our" which prompts questions from Tony and Doug. The Curator tells them the people on his planet originally came from Earth over two thousand years ago and built a new civilization on this new planet. Curator tells Tony his people rediscovered the time travel secret several thousand years ago. When they ask him to send them home he reveals he is not the leader but only the Curator of this small museum. The exhibits were two of the many which depict ancient life on Earth. The museum covers ninety square miles. Kirk, Ann, and Ray are ready to switch Tony and Doug back to 1968 and the time tunnel complex. OTT arrives now and meets Tony and Doug and says, "I am honored."The Curator lacks the authority to send them back with OTT who is going to 1968. He also adds that they are to be a permanent part of the time tunnel exhibit in the museum. Doug tries to get home using their time device but after a crackle of sparks, he is hurled across the room to lie still in a crumpled heap.

Act Two begins with OTT attacking the time tunnel complex. He takes the component now and kidnaps Ann, calling them all by name. Tony greets Doug as he sits up and so does the Curator who is smiling. He lets them know they are his honored guests. OTT brings Ann to meet Tony and Doug. When the Curator is given the power converter, Tony and Doug rush him but fall due to more electric shocks. Ray calls to find out how long it will take to replace the power conversion unit. Kirk complains that they will never get in contact with any of them again if they have to wait ten days and adds, "Do you realize that, Ray? Never!"Ray responds by suddenly feeling tired and old, slumping down in his chair, staring at the dead and silent screen Image Area and says, "Yes, General, I realize it."Tony and Doug fill Ann in on what the place they are in is like. Pills and water are brought in. The entire sequence from here is almost the same as the aired version. The Curator tells Ann that they live by photosynthesis via a biological adaptation. Tony mentions that the Curator might be able to see them, too. They fake the pill going into their mouths. Tony slipped his pill into Ann's palm. When they see Hitler, the Curator explains he was for their WWII exhibit. The guards are referred to as Custodians. Curator puts Hitler, who is still alive, in a deep catatonic state and he will remain that way through the ages. He is given the treatment to remain quite "supple" for posing, he tells them. Then he tells the three of them they will all join the permanent exhibit in a life like pose forever. End of Act Two.

Act Three begins with the Curator showing the trio a drawing of what pose they will be in when they become part of the exhibit. When Doug asks that he let Ann go, the Curator matter of factly admits he is thinking of adding Dr. Swain and General Kirk to the exhibit as it will add to the overall effect of intense activity rather than cluttering it up as he originally thought. Curator reveals that his leaders have warned him that one more expensive failure could mean the end of his projects forever. As this is his life, he cannot let that happen. In the script, Ann is afraid and voices this when the want to split up. Tony knows how she feels and when she braves it, Doug calls her a good girl! Ray and Kirk can do nothing but wait and they are both feeling the strain. Kirk tells Ray he sent all but a skeleton crew off duty. Ray wonders if that was a good idea. He also thinks waiting can be the toughest job in the world. The rest pretty much plays up to the way the episode ran with the Curator and Custodians frozen due to the night and OTT menacing our trio. He is still awake due to his solar battery. I like how the script calls the alarms raucous--I felt that way about the alarms on this show. OTT, however, sounds an alarm, Doug thinks there must be other OTTs since OTT sounded this alarm. OTT directs three custodians who also have solar batteries hooked onto their waists. They are to find the trio, kill them if they have to. Ann won't leave until they get the power conversion unit...they will need it to get Tony and Doug out of here if something goes wrong with the alien machine. OTT catches them and the script says he is as close to smiling as he's ever been. As OTT is shot by Tony, he fires a ray which hits above them harmlessly. Ann appears back in 1968 as Kirk is pacing and Ray is eyeing the dead console lights. Doug grabs the Custodian's medallion. Tony and Doug vanish into the limbo of Time, headed for another place, another period, another adventure. This script, called the final shooting script (Feb. 1 1967) is radically different than the aired version. Good old William Welch wrote a great story but it was so radically changed that it made little sense when viewed on TV. The changes deleted all the explanations and sensible dialogue and added silly chase fight scenes. As it is, the aired version is barely watchable but it is still better than RAIDERS, VISITORS, and TOWN OF TERROR. It all made much more sense whenreading the script and it is a lot like TIMELOCK on VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.